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Destiny Subclass Lore: Bladedancer

Sublcass Lore

Bladedance

Set aside your weapons and lose yourself in the blade trance. Arc Light galvanizes your armor and hastens your movements, and when your knife finds a target it discharges a snap of annihilating current. For as long as the trance lasts, you are the very shadow of death.

Welcome back guardians. Today we are continuing with the Destiny Lore subclass series, and this time we are covering the Bladedancers. I know, this seems a bit unfair considering I only recently covered the Golden Gun hunters… but the comments in that video were hilarious and surprisingly really good natured, considering I essentially called all Hunters arrogant, you instead proved that you had a pretty good sense of humour just like your Vanguard mentor Cayde, so thank you for that. With E3 on the horizon, with the playable ArcStrider, I also thought it was a perfect time to cover the Bladedancer. I will cover the general lore and attitude of Bladedancers (which is quite different from the Golden Gun) and then cover potential legendary Bladedancers, one of which may be Shiro-4.

A big thanks to Lydell070898 and Splashback77 on discord for collating all the in-game text for me for the Bladedancer. Also a quick reminder about my patreon page, all donations go towards employing artists to create the Destiny Lore comic books, Gamma trap is working very hard on the next one, which will be out just before Destiny 2, here is a sneak peak.

Also, you can read all of my destiny lore scripts on my website, link below and lastly, I will be on twitch as soon as I upload this, today is lore night, feel free to join and ask a question.

This is myelin games and I hope you enjoy this latest destiny lore episode.

Let’s being. As I mentioned in the Gunslinger lore video, Gunslingers are often described as elitists and arrogant, not my words by the way, that is how Lord Shaxx and Ikora Rey refer to Gunslingers, however, Bladedancers are seen very differently by the Vanguard. Whilst Ikora Rey may mock the Gunslinger, she has quite a different tune towards the Bladedancer, the Sheathed Lighting quest line reads,

“Firearms are more than enough for a Warlock to carry into battle. Knives always seemed extraneous to me until I saw what a Hunter could do with them. Everything has its place.” —Ikora Rey

In fact, within the lore the Bladedancer is consistently described with fear, death and lethality. Have a listen to the Bladedancer grimoire card

There’s something to be said for the blade. A knife won’t jam. A knife won’t run dry. A knife is very, very quiet. Leave the noise and fire to others. There’s work to be done, out there in the dark – monsters that deserve death, delivered quickly, silently, and without mercy.

And have a listen to the questline dialogue

“You want to know fear? Face down a Bladedancer, all sharp edges and crackling death. Then you’ll know fear.” —Cayde-6

And this from the Arc Blade grimoire card,

Set aside your weapons and lose yourself in the blade trance. Arc Light galvanizes your armor and hastens your movements, and when your knife finds a target it discharges a snap of annihilating current. For as long as the trance lasts, you are the very shadow of death.

The final quote for me, apart from emphasizing the lethality of Bladedancers, also emphasizes the dark sense of humor of Bladedancers, I mean they literally poking fun of enemies they have killed with an arc blade. This is quite the contrast to the attitude of Gunslingers who have a much lighter sense of humor, with a stronger sense of competition and banter.

So we have established that Bladedancers are very dangerous and tad creepy, but what makes a Bladedancer so lethal, well there are a couple of things. Firstly, they in general are described as having no honor. They are not interested in a fair fight, their abilities are suited to ambushes and assassinations. Just have a look at the name of their abilities, Backstab, stalker. They are there for the kill, this is reinforced by the quest line which reads,

“There’s no honor in how the Bladedancer’s Arc Light seeks out targets. And they revel in it.” —Lord Shaxx

And the backstabber bounty which reads,

“If Bladedancers seem a little unfair it’s because they are. No room for honor in a fight.” —Cayde-6

So, firstly, their attitude is one thing that makes them very lethal, secondly Bladedancers are also very dangerous due to their speed. The quest line reads,

“The only way to defeat the speed of a Blink Strike is to stop it from occurring.” —Commander Zavala

And this

“Bladedancers lack the Striker’s strength, but even a Striker must admit the Bladedancers move at a velocity Strikers can only hope to match.” —Commander Zavala

And this

“The Arc Blade movement represents a Bladedancer’s top speed, which she can only maintain for so long. As with many Light-based techniques, timing is everything.” —Lord Shaxx

And this

“They’ll see the Arc before they see the Bladedancer. And by then it’ll be too late.” —Cayde-6

I love the difference in attitude that the Vanguard have towards the Bladedancers, in comparison to Gunslingers, it really cements the dangerous nature of Bladedancers and you don’t have this back and fourth banter that you typically see with Gunslingers.

The other really interesting thing about Bladedancers, that sets them apart from the other subclasses, is how they manipulate the light when Bladedancing. The technique is described in a similar fashion to how Warlocks wield the light, and that is to become a conduit to wielding the light and channelling the light through meditation and a trance like state.

The Arc Blade grimoire card reads,

Set aside your weapons and lose yourself in the blade trance. Arc Light galvanizes your armor and hastens your movements, and when your knife finds a target it discharges a snap of annihilating current. For as long as the trance lasts, you are the very shadow of death.

The questline would also go on to say how the Arc light reflects the Hunter and how it is alive, it reads,

“The Bladedancer’s interpretation of Arc Light is a reflection of the Hunter herself. Seeking targets to sink Light—or a knife—into.” —Lord Shaxx

And this,

A Bladedancer’s arc light is alive. It seeks threats like lightnin’ seeks metal, but you have to help it. It relies on you for the timin’

As you can see, the Bladedancers lack of honor, willingness to do anything to win the fight, speed, stealth and uniqueness with wielding the light easily justifies their lethal title.

Lastly, before moving onto some potential legendary Bladedancers, lets briefly talk about Rasputin and stealth tech. As many of you will likely know, in the Promethean code mission, Cayde suggests that Bladedancers stole technology from Rasputin to allow them to go invisible. The mission reads,

Ghost These cryptosystems follow no logic I understand. I’m not sure it can be modified to work on a Guardian.Cayde-6 Where do you think Bladedancers got their cloaking ability? [Grab the codes, I’ll upload my modifications.]Eris Morn If the Vanguard are satisfied, we can finally end this. Return to the moon. Steal Crota’s soul

Now, whilst many players may have heard this before, you may not have heard what Tevis says during the quest line, he says this,

“Don’t believe Cayde. Half the things out of his mouth are lies, the other half are fibs. My favorite line of his? Oh, easy. He likes to say he stole the secret of stealth tech from Rasputin, and that’s how Bladedancers learned the trick. Hah!” – Tevis

As far as I am aware, there are no other pieces of evidence that supports or denies the use of warmind technology for Hunters cloaking ability, so you will need to make your own decision on whether you believe Cayde or Tevis.

Now lets move onto potential Bladedancers in the Destiny universe. Once again, thanks to the discord for the suggestions. As far as a I know, I cannot think of any hunters who are outright confirmed as Bladedancers in the lore, I am sure Cayde can Bladedance but that is not his main class.

However, Shiro-4 is my top guess for Hunters who are Bladedancers. One reason for this is because of his chest piece. He is wearing the Hunter exotic, Luck Raspberry which improves Arcbolt grenades for Blade Dancers. The Lucky Raspberry item description reads,

> No one has ever died wearing me.

# It’s true. She leaves the unworthy before they fall.

This description implies that the armor is alive and that it leaves it’s owner if they are not worthy. For this reason, it seems like Lucky Raspberry may be a unique exotic, you will know that sometimes you can have multiple exotics, for example, multiples of Suros Regime was produced, were as sometimes you can only have one exotic in destiny’s universe. This item description makes me think, that only one Lucky Raspberry exists and Shiro is wearing it, the chest piece that Eris Morn has on whilst similar to Luck Raspberry may be different.

The other reason why I think a Bladedancer suits Shiro-4 is his general lore of being a scout and assassin. Shiro-4 is referred to as the Vanguard Scout and his side arm the Trespasser reinforces his assassination of the Fallen. The stealth tech of the Bladedancer is perfect for both Scout and assassination missions. For more information Shiro-4 as assassin, see my video about his cape. I also feel like a sidearm is a perfect weapon for the Bladedancer, they prefer close quarters combat and feel like sidearms are a perfect companion to the knife. I liken this to how you would expect Golden Gun hunters to engage from a distance and be more likely to use Sniper rifles.

So as you can see, Shiro-4 is not confirmed as a Bladedancer however his surrounding lore I think is well suited to being a Bladedancer.

There are two other character who also could be Blade dancers, one is Lord Gheleon and the other is Sai Mota. Lord Gheleon is an iron lord and was obsessed with knives, to the point where he had named them. The Lord Gheleon grimoire card reads,

Gheleon wears three knives. Their names are Swiftling, Occam, Quietus. They did much of the work at Black Lona, in silence and at speed.
The fact that the card says that he used the knives with silence and speed to me implies that he is a Bladedancer due to the characteristics of blade dancers being speed and silence. However, you could argue that he may be a Gunslinger. However, Lord Gheleon has a very dark sense of humour and I think this is much more suited to the Bladedancers than the Gunslingers. This is how Lord Gheleon justifies having bone armour to the other Iron Lords,

“If all of you were cut down around me, your Light drained past return, and my own armor was shredded. F’r instance.”

There is a long silence.

“You always know what to say to make us feel better,” Efrideet says.

“I could hide under your bodies until the threat left. Then I’d make a helmet from all your skulls and a breastplate from your ribs and gloves from your finger bones wrapped around mine.”

There is a longer silence.

So yeah, a very dark sense of humour from Lord Gheleon. I think you could argue he is either a Bladedancer or Gunslinger, however my best guess at this stage would be Bladedancer. Lastly, I wanted to mention Sai Mota. Sai was a member of Eris Morn’s fireteam. When Eris Morn and her team are within the Hellmouth trying to track down Crota Sai says this,

Eriana-3: From what Toland has described we are on the path of Crota’s dreaded Hand.

Sai: The Hand is falling back toward the screams beyond these tunnels.

Eriana-3: Screw it. You ready?

Sai: My knives are eager for another dance.

Eriana-3: You speak little, Sai Mota, but always say the right things.

The fact that Sai says my knives are eager for another dance, seems to suggest that Sai is a Bladedancer. So, Shiro-4, Lord Gheleon and Sai Mota are my three guesses of legendary Bladedancers.

Just remember Titans and Warlocks, Gunslingers are much more likely to shoot you in the face followed by some friendly banter, whereas you wont even see the Bladedancer coming.

That concludes this latest destiny lore episode, if you would like to suppor the channel, leave the word, “lethal”, alternatively if you want to hassle the Bladedacners, leave the word “creepy” to acknowledge their dark sense of humour. As usual it has been a pleasure, this is myelin games. Peace.